Writer's Group begins ~
Ariel.of.Narnia: Well, looks like it's the two of us, at least to start with.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Fire away!
Squirrel 6867640: Cool
Squirrel 6867640: I have face-claims for a few of the characters...are you interested?
Ariel.of.Narnia: Sure!
Squirrel 6867640: So they all look like slightly younger versions of their face-claims
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okay
Squirrel 6867640: River--Marie Digby
Squirrel 6867640: Cam--Taylor Swift
Squirrel 6867640: Iris--Elizabeth Olsen
Squirrel 6867640: Jason--Logan Lerman
Squirrel 6867640: That's all I have so far
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okay
Ariel.of.Narnia: (Yay, I only had to look up one of them! )
Squirrel 6867640 (albero) shares ~
Squirrel 6867640: Onto the story
Squirrel 6867640: “Has anyone seen River?” Iris asked absentmindedly as she cleaned her gun.
“No,” Eli replied.
“Me, neither,” Jason said.
“Hmm,” Iris answered uneasily.
“But really, does anyone ever know where she is?” Eli questioned.
“Point taken,” Iris said with a shrug. River was always off on her own, doing some kind of work around the fort.
“Guys,” Cam said, almost falling over as she scrambled in, “it seems we have a situation.”
“What is it?” Eli asked, standing up.
“River’s missing.”
“Yes!” Remus crowed, running in. Everyone glared at him. “What?” he asked. “She’s always ordering me around and making me work.”
“Work at the job you’re already supposed to be doing,” Cam said with a roll of her dark green eyes.
Iris and Jason exchanged a nervous look. “Anyway…” Iris said, glancing at Cam and then staring back at her gun.
“Oh, sorry,” Cam said with an evil look at Remus. “When was the last time anyone saw her?”
“It’s been a while,” said Eli unhelpfully. “But what about her tracking device?”
“It says she’s standing in the middle of her room. She’s not.” Cam lifted her eyebrows at Iris.
“It was early this morning. I made her coffee, and then she disappeared down the hall. She was going to work on the logistics for our next attack, or something like that.” She shrugged. “Sorry, Cam.”
“Jason?” Cam asked.
“I haven’t seen her all day.” He looked oddly uncomfortable.
“Remus, please tell me you saw her.”
“Unfortunately, I did. It was later in the morning…maybe ten-thirty? She was ordering me around, having me organize the weapons and stuff.”
“Remus! You were supposed to do that yesterday!”
His dark eyes were full of mischief. “I had other things to do.”
“Is that what happened to our bag of pretzels?" Iris demanded.
“Is what?”
“Did you do something with it?”
“Erm…”
Iris looked like she was going to burst. "Remus, I can't believe you'd waste food like that!" There was a worldwide food shortage from overpopulation. Even pretzels were valuable. No one knew if the crisis would be averted, but the government had decided they would try to do it by exterminating citizens.
All of their parents had been exterminated, so they one by one found each other and took up base in an abandoned military fort. They tried to infiltrate the government, but 6 people just wasn't enough to perform all the heists and missions they wanted to. Still, they had managed to get some stockpiled food released from the government and started a petition to stop the extermination of adults with children. They hoped to stop extermination completely, but it was a start.
“So,” Cam said, “no one has seen her since this morning?”
“No,” they all said in unison.
“Alright, we’ll need to—what is it, Eli?”
“I’m getting messaged.”
“By River?” She asked excitedly.
“No.”
"Who, then?”
“Claudius.”
Squirrel 6867640: Scene break!
Squirrel 6867640: Should I keep going?
Ariel.of.Narnia: Keep it going! I'm curious.
Squirrel 6867640: “What do you what, Claudius?” Eli angrily asked their arch-nemesis over video message. He was a high-ranking official in the government; the one who'd come up with the idea to exterminate citizens.
“Oh, I just wanted to say hi…and to let someone else say hi.” He grinned and moved the camera so that they could see River next to him, gagged and tied up.
“River!” Iris cried.
“Yes, it’s one of your little friends,” Claudius cackled. River, whose hazel eyes, usually cool and calm, were full of terror, tried to say something through the gag. “Quiet!” Claudius screamed, slapping her across the face, making a small cut. Jason flinched, and Eli saw his eyes fill with anger.
“I said, what do you want, Claudius?” Eli said, struggling to keep his voice calm through his anger, which was also mounting.
“I don’t need much…just the location of your secret barracks. Is that too much to ask?” He grinned.
“Claudius, we’ll never—” Remus started. Cam clamped a hand over his mouth.
“We’ll talk about this and call you back when we’ve made a decision.” Eli said.
“Just know that time is ticking!” Claudius said with a disgusting glee, placing a hand on River's shoulder.
Eli hung up. He was upset. River was like his little sister, and if Claudius did anything to her…
“What do we do?” Iris asked.
“Not meet his demands?” said Remus nervously.
“Of course not. We’re organizing a rescue mission,” Eli said. Cam nodded serenely.
“Iris, since you’re the smallest and stealthiest, you’ll do the reconnaissance. Then Eli and Remus will provide the distraction. Jason will go in and get River, and I’ll stay here monitoring you. Are you wearing your tracking devices?”
They all nodded.
“Good. Eli,” she said, “we need to figure out all of the details. Go get ready, everyone else.”
While she and Eli sat in the control room, making sure all of the tracking devices were set up correctly, coming up with strategies, and other such things, Iris, Jason, and Remus were in their rooms, putting on black field clothes and cleaning their guns. In a few short hours, everything was ready.
“Good luck,” Cam said, looking at all of them, but with her look lingering on Eli.
“Gross,” Remus whispered to Iris. She giggled.
“Let’s go,” Eli told the three others.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Where is she?” Jason muttered as he crept around another corner. Finding which room River was hidden in was harder than he thought it would be. He heard a slight commotion in another room. It was Eli and Remus causing a ruckus. They’d do that in one room, move to another room, farther away, and keep doing it.
“Need to find her, need to find her,” he muttered. She was his friend, and he hated the idea of anything happening to her. He ever so quietly pushed open a door. The room was very dim, but he could see a figure tied to a chair. “Bulls-eye,” he whispered. He walked to the center of the room where the chair was. “Hey, River,” he said. She was asleep. “River?” he said. She bolted upright, the same terror from earlier in her eyes. When she saw who it was, however, the terror melted to indifference. Jason winced at the sight of her cheek. It was dark and bruised, and there was a cut with a trail of dried blood coming from it. It made him so angry that Claudius would do this to someone—a girl, no less. Jason shook himself and got to work on freeing River. He first untied the gag.
“Thanks,” she said. She worked her jaw, then smiled weakly. “This is much better.”
He cut the ropes tying her to the chair, but there was still a pair of sophisticated handcuffs. He grabbed a lockpicking device, something Cam told him he might need, from his pocked and quickly finished freeing River.
“Thanks,” she said again. She looked pretty bad.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jason asked, concerned.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. Her eyes were shimmering with tears.
“I seriously doubt that,” he said before he lost his nerve.
She looked angry. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t look so….”
“What?” She asked, her voice like a glacier: cold, hard, and terrifying.
“Uh, nothing.”
A tear slid out of the corner of her eye. She bit her lip and looked at him for a second, then away. She touched his hand, then quickly recoiled. She took a deep breath. “We need to go,” she said. “Um, sorry for…”
“It’s okay.” It sort of wasn’t. His hand had gone numb.
She pulled her hair back, maintaining eye contact with the floor. Jason noticed that she seemed to have been stripped of all of her weapons, lockpicking devices, other gadgets, and, most importantly, her tracking device. “So, how are we getting out?” she asked, avoiding his eyes.
“Through the back door,” he said.
“Sounds too easy.”
“It’s not.”
“Good.” River had always best liked difficult missions with the highest risk possible of dying. He wondered if she really did anymore, or if she was just acting. “So how are we doing it?”
“Eli will be waiting there, Iris will provide a final distraction while Remus runs back, and then we make a mad dash for it.”
“Sounds fun.”
“If running for your life is fun.”
“Well, I think it is.” She glanced at him for half a second, then looked away. “Are we going?” she asked the ground.
“Yeah, we need to,” Jason answered. “Eli will be waiting there, Iris will provide a final distraction while Remus runs back, and then we make a mad dash for it.”
“Sounds fun.”
“If running for your life is fun.”
They crept out of the room. Unfortunately, there was a guard waiting at the end of the hallway. They must've caught on to what was happening. Jason heard the sound of struggling from another room. Eli and Remus can handle themselves just fine, he reminded himself. And we can handle ourselves.
The guard looked at them. "Hey!" He yelled. He was buff, definitely not someone you'd want to run into in an alley. But before his guy could call for anyone else, River jumped him. She kicked him in the side, then whacked at his collarbone with the side of her hand when he was still reeling.
“Ow!" He said.
"Sorry," River grunted. She didn't seem sorry. She was about to take him out when two more came around the corner.
“How nice,” Jason thought. He had a stun gun, though. He got close to the second guy. He grabbed one of Jason's wrists, but he shot the guard and he fell to the ground, unconscious. Then he turned to the third one. He knocked the stun gun out of Jason's hand, but he had been anticipating that. With quick reflexes, he grabbed his lockpicking tool and stabbed at the guy's arm with it. He felt a little sorry for him, but Jason just hoped the guy had gotten a tetanus shot and punched his jaw. The guard fell, unconscious.
River, meanwhile, had been grappling with the first guard. She finally punched the back of his neck and knocked him out. Though normal guns would've made it much easier, the 6 of them had a strict no-kill policy. Killing people would go against everything they were fighting for.
The two of them sprinted through the building, zig-zagging through corridors to throw off anyone who might chase them. They finally reached one of the outside doors, nearly running straight into the other three. They ran out of the door, not stopping for about a quarter of a mile, where they had parked an old Jeep.
Once they were inside the car and Eli was driving them off, Iris squealed at River.
“I’m so glad you’re alright!” she said.
“I am, too,” River answered dryly.
“We’re all glad you’re okay,” Eli said, jabbing Remus in the ribs with his elbow.
“Yeah, yeah,” Remus said without the slightest amount of enthusiasm. “Tickled pink.”
Eli raised an eyebrow at him.
“What? Should I act more happy? Oh, River, we are just plumb downright overjoyed that you didn’t die down there. My word, bless your heart, dearie,” he said in falsetto with a southern accent. Iris kicked the back of his seat.
“I wanted to do that,” River told Iris.
The Jeep went over a bump and jostled them all. River’s arm touched Jason’s. He felt like he was going to black out, but she didn’t seem to notice.
Squirrel 6867640: All I've edited so far.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Wha- wait. He was just about to black out. Why?
Squirrel 6867640: She touched him.
Squirrel 6867640: smiley-razz
Squirrel 6867640: I should change the wording, apparently
Ariel.of.Narnia: *narrows eyes* but-but --
Ariel.of.Narnia: No, I got that it was a result of the contact.
Squirrel 6867640: What?
Squirrel 6867640: I'm confuzzled because I confuzzled you...
Ariel.of.Narnia: But I've a feeling you aren't going to tell me what's significant of the touch...
Squirrel 6867640: He likes her.
Squirrel 6867640: I guess I didn't make that obvious enough...
Ariel.of.Narnia: Oh. that's much less exciting than what I was thinking about.
Squirrel 6867640: Hehe
Ariel.of.Narnia: Or I was bouncing between stories too much.
Squirrel 6867640: I think it's exciting.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Not half as exciting as what I was thinking of, heehee
Squirrel 6867640: So I am very much considering killing off Jason...blame my BFF/critique partner XD
Ariel.of.Narnia: But my theory was a jumped-to conclusion.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Heehee
Ariel.of.Narnia: Well, I like what you've shared
Ariel.of.Narnia: I got the feel of the different character pretty quickly and was grateful for the amount of dialogue that played into that
Squirrel 6867640: Thanks.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Welcome.
Ariel.of.Narnia: And the action was easy to follow as well, which I always like.
Squirrel 6867640: Thank you
Squirrel 6867640: I'm literally grinning like the Cheshire Cat right now
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha, really now?
Squirrel 6867640: Yeah
Ariel.of.Narnia: *then grins back*
Ariel.of.Narnia: Is there anything in particular you're looking for in feedback?
Squirrel 6867640: Brutal honesty.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha
Ariel.of.Narnia: The only criticism I think I have at the moment is that I felt that the rescue happened just about immediately after the exchange with the baddie.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Obviously, you don't want to drag things out and/or bore us with the planning process, but I felt like there was hardly any passage of time, but not a lack of time in a need-for-speed sort of way, if that makes any sense
Squirrel 6867640: Okay
Ariel.of.Narnia: Do you have anything else you'd like to share or shall I go?
Squirrel 6867640: Your turn
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okay.
Ariel.of.Narnia shares ~
Ariel.of.Narnia: I too am looking for brutal honesty. If you don't understand something, please, please, please say so.
Ariel.of.Narnia: As he took in the view from the twentieth floor, the lights went out all over the city. Air raid sirens continued to blare for a couple minutes more before all fell silent but the ringing in his ears. The outside world waited breathlessly, both anticipating and hoping against the drone of aircraft, the whistle of falling bombs, the bellow of an explosion, and the myriad of terrifying sounds an explosion would produce in its wake.
But there would be no air raid tonight, this much he knew. Not that it stopped him from dreading along with everyone else, even if he felt it less keenly than they. It was not something he’d ever admit aloud, but his heart knew. He could tell by its fluttering in his chest. He pressed his hand over it, attempting to calm it with its warmth and with his assurances. He squinted at the glow-in-the-dark hands of his watch.
The world was a cruel place. Oh, it had it beauties for certain, but when men turned against other men, there was no beauty to be found. Some argued that the bonds of brotherhood that result were the contrast, the stars to the midnight of conflict. To a point, he supposed he agreed, but only to a point. Ah, but the stars were the whole point, were they not? That was why he was here now, twenty floors above the relative safety of bomb shelters. He would love to be higher up, to be closer to them, to be closer…. But the twentieth floor was where he’d remain.
It was nice, being in the city but able to see the stars. Sure, it felt a little strange, but the lack of man-made lights made the celestial host all the clearer. Stars reminded him of his brother. Back home, when they were boys, they’d lie outside and stare up at them. He just thought of them as beautiful pinpricks of light, but his brother knew better, singling certain ones out as constellations.
He looked at his watch again. Just a few minutes more.
The silence, the peace would only last a little longer before the city erupted in noise again.
Not long now.
He wanted to relish it.
Contentedness.
He looked at his watch again.
Not yet.
He didn’t want to let go this moment.
Fear.
But he must.
He pressed his nose against the glass. Looked up at the stars. His brother’s stars.
Then it was the breath before the plunge.
Revenge at last.
He stepped back. The noise he had predicted came just half a moment later.
No matter. His world was set ablaze like the sun and pain shot through his body.
Then all was black and for half a second, he felt as though he was floating up to the stars, thought he saw his brother among them.
He wondered absently if the city looked a little like the stars if one was high enough. If his brother was looking down.
Satisfaction.
There would be no air raid tonight.
Ariel.of.Narnia: And that's the end
Squirrel 6867640: So the ending confused me a little...
Squirrel 6867640: What exactly was he doing?
Ariel.of.Narnia: Mm'kay, obviously need to work on that.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Do you have any theories on what he was doing?
Squirrel 6867640: I think he was killing himself...O.O
Ariel.of.Narnia: Hehe, okay, that's half of it.
Squirrel 6867640: OH MY GOSH THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA IS IN CHAT
Ariel.of.Narnia: Hi, Phantom!
Squirrel 6867640: Iiiiiin sleeeeep he saaaaaaaang to meeeeeee
Squirrel 6867640: So...what was the other half of it?
Ariel.of.Narnia: Anyway, the other half of what he was doing was, um, a terrorist attack.
Squirrel 6867640: I'm still confused...:\
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha, okay
Ariel.of.Narnia: This is why I need to share the stories I wrote like this.
Ariel.of.Narnia: So here's my train of thought
Squirrel 6867640: Yeah?
Ariel.of.Narnia: There's an air raid siren, driving everyone into hiding and turning out all the lights. He's on the twentieth floor of some building because he knows that there's no air raid. Because he's the one setting off the attack on the ground
Squirrel 6867640: Oh!
Squirrel 6867640: Okay, I get it now
Ariel.of.Narnia: Then he reflects on his brother and jazz. I tried to imply that bro is dead and that the attack was to avenge him, but that all came out muddy
Squirrel 6867640: It sort of did...
Ariel.of.Narnia:... guess I should make more of a connection to the air raid siren too.
Squirrel 6867640: I didn't really catch that part
Squirrel 6867640: Yes
Ariel.of.Narnia: *nods* still working on it
Ariel.of.Narnia: So any suggestions on making stronger implications without coming out and saying stuff?
Squirrel 6867640: As you can prolly tell...I'm not much good at implying stuff
Ariel.of.Narnia: ?
Squirrel 6867640: What?
Ariel.of.Narnia: You're not good at implying stuff?
Squirrel 6867640: Not really
Ariel.of.Narnia: Well, is there something I can do, in your opinion as a reader, to make my story clearer?
Squirrel 6867640: Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhh...........not sure :\
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha, no worries then
Ariel.of.Narnia: I'll try to fiddle with it on my own, then.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Was there anything else you wanted to share or are you done for tonight?
Squirrel 6867640: I guess I'm done
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okey-dokey
Squirrel 6867640: But I think I'll work on that writing prompt that you used for this story
Ariel.of.Narnia: Sweet! I'd love to see what you come up with
Squirrel 6867640: It's begging to be a Percy Jackson fanfiction about the Second Titan War
Ariel.of.Narnia: Just an fyi, though, I'll be gone next weekend, so there won't be writers' next week.
Squirrel 6867640: I'll work on it right now...I'll prolly only be a few minutes if you want to stick around
Ariel.of.Narnia: Oh, wow, sure.
Ariel.of.Narnia: While you do that, I'll announce my absence next week...
Squirrel 6867640: I'll need to change the prompt a bit, though
Ariel.of.Narnia: Sure!
Squirrel 6867640: Ugh I have a word on the tip of my tongue but I can't remember it X(
Ariel.of.Narnia: Any synonyms?
Ariel.of.Narnia: Or sorta-close words?
Squirrel 6867640: I remembered! It's activity
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha
Ariel.of.Narnia: *reworks parts of her story*
Squirrel 6867640: So
Squirrel 6867640: This is a hundred-word thing
Ariel.of.Narnia: Ooh, a drabble!
Squirrel 6867640: But it took me forever because I couldn't remember what floor of the Empire State Building Olympus was on.
Squirrel 6867640 (albero) shares ~
Squirrel 6867640: As Connor Stoll took in the view from the twentieth floor of the Empire State Building, activity stopped all over the city. Ceased. One moment, Manhattan was bustling with life and movement. The next, all was quiet. “What in the world?” He muttered. Everyone had just dropped to the ground. They were asleep. In doorways, in cars, on the middle of the sidewalk, they had simply /stopped./ There hadn’t been a battle, he knew. But what could have possibly caused this? “I’ve gotta tell Percy,” he muttered as he hopped on the elevator and went to the 600th floor, Olympus.
Squirrel 6867640: The end
Ariel.of.Narnia: Nice opening!
Squirrel 6867640: Thank you
Squirrel 6867640: I decided to do this from the perspective of a minor character...who is also my favorite
Ariel.of.Narnia: Gotta love minor characters that end up being favourites
Ariel.of.Narnia: *still is unsure if her adjustments have fixed her story*
Squirrel 6867640: Can I see?
Ariel.of.Narnia re-shares ~
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okay.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Should I start from the beginning?
Ariel.of.Narnia: As he took in the view from the twentieth floor, the lights went out all over the city. Air raid sirens continued to blare for a couple minutes more before all fell silent but the ringing in his ears. The outside world waited breathlessly, both anticipating and hoping against the drone of aircraft, the whistle of falling bombs, the bellow of an explosion, and the myriad of terrifying sounds an explosion would produce in its wake.
But there would be no air raid tonight, this much he knew. Not that it stopped him from dreading along with everyone else, even if he felt it less keenly than they. It was not something he’d ever admit aloud, but his heart knew. He could tell by its fluttering in his chest. He pressed his hand over it, attempting to calm it with its warmth and with his assurances. He squinted at the glow-in-the-dark hands of his watch.
The world was a cruel place. Oh, it had it beauties for certain, but when men turned against other men, there was no beauty to be found. Some argued that the bonds of brotherhood that result were the contrast, the stars to the midnight of conflict. To a point, he supposed he agreed, but only to a point. Ah, but the stars were the whole point, were they not? That was why he was here now, twenty floors above the relative safety of bomb shelters. He would love to be higher up, to be closer to them, to be closer…. But the twentieth floor was where he’d remain.
It was nice, being in the city but able to see the stars. Sure, it felt a little strange, but the lack of man-made lights made the celestial host all the clearer. Stars reminded him of his brother. Back home, when they were boys, they’d lie outside on warm summer nights and stare up at them. He just thought of them as beautiful pinpricks of light, but his brother had known better, singling certain ones out as constellations.
He looked at his watch again. Just a few minutes more.
The silence, this peace, this almost-beauty would only last a little longer before the city erupted in noise again. He wondered absently if the city would look a little like the stars if one was high enough. No, there’d be no beauty in it. Justice, yes, but no beauty. It’d be closer to the flashes of a firing squad.
He wondered if his brother was watching.
Not long now.
He wanted to relish it, but he alternatively didn’t want to let go of this moment.
He looked at his watch again.
Not yet, please not just yet.
But he must. He pressed his nose against the glass. Looked up at the stars. His brother’s stars. This was for his brother’s sake.
He stepped back. The noise he had predicted came just half a moment later, tearing his world apart and setting it ablaze like the sun. Heat and pain flashed through his body as seventy-four floors came crashing down.
Then all was black and for half a second, he felt as though he was floating up to the stars, thought he saw his brother among them, welcoming him home with a smile.
Somewhere outside his world, the air raid sirens started up again, but there would be no air raid tonight.
Ariel.of.Narnia: The end
Squirrel 6867640: It's amazing now
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha
Ariel.of.Narnia: Well, that's good to know
Squirrel 6867640: I need to go to bed now
Ariel.of.Narnia: Alrighty. Thanks for coming tonight, Berry, and sharing!
Squirrel 6867640: This was fun!
Ariel.of.Narnia: Yes, it was
Ariel.of.Narnia: Thank you for your help.
Squirrel 6867640: No problem!
Squirrel 6867640: Thank you for yours
Squirrel 6867640: Bye!
Ariel.of.Narnia: Welcome. Bye!
Writer's Group dismissed ~
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